Why did 1mb RAM make such a big difference on Amiga games and not on x86 games?

[Hammer]

Sooner or later there is going to be a point were all this bloatware will bite x86 computers in the ass. I think it may be sooner than later, as 64bit machines are just around the corner.

On what basis did you obtained this POV?

As for whether m$ will try to make backwards compatibility native or emulated is another question altogether.

On AMD64, the status quo will be extended to 64 bits i.e. yet another WOW (Windows on Windows) layer.

Beta edition of MS Windows 2003 Server AMD64 Edition will run existing MS Windows applications at  (except for applications who breaks MS’s API guidelines) without compromising the performance (unlike IA-64 Edition).

Note that the current Athlon K7 family decodes X86-32 instructions in to smaller RISC style instructions (i.e. modern X86 CPUs are just post-RISC chips with a fix function hardware emulator.)

Transmeta's X86 decoder is a combination of software and hardware.

Based on http://www.amdboard.com/hn03130301.html

1.8Ghz Athlon 64** was rated at 3200+
(refers to Athlon Thunderbird Rating)
 
1.8Ghz Athlon XP(Thoroughbred-A core) was rated at 2200+.

1.8Ghz Athlon XP(Barton core)was rated at 2500+.

PS; The last Athlon XP core would be Thorton core(FSB 400Mhz DDR).

Reference
============
http://www.dinoxpc.com/Guide/Processori/AMD_PR/pr.ASP

Notes:
============
**Athlon 64 comes in either 1MB L2 cache or 256Kb L2 cache (targeted for Celeron/Value type markets)

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?lp=ja_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpc.watch.impress.co.jp%2Fdocs%2F2003%2F0318%2Fkaigai01.htm

I hear 64bit h/w is less forgiving to inefficient programming.

On what basis did you obtained this information?

Unlike Intel's IA-64, the AMD64 platform is just the extension of K7 family.

You only need look at the woeful problems encountered by Intel with their 64bit desktop prototype chips,
 

IA-64 was designed differently to X86-32 CPUs i.e. more work on programmer side.

which is why a desktop solution seems far away. Microsoft are also holding off on a 64bit desktop OS for as long as they can.

How could you conclude that i.e. when both AMD64 edition and IA-64 edition is currently in beta edition?

In this year’s CeBIT, an AMD64 system was shown to run a beta version AMD64 Windows and a Direct3D game.

[Hammer]

 

But my question is why did the 512K upgrade prove to be more worthwhile, than say upgrading the same RAM on the x86 series? Sure PeeCees back then were appalingly crude and horrible inefficient machines... much like today! lol! But really how did Amiga make use of every little bit of RAM that was thrown on it? It was like it squeezed out every last kilobyte it was handed. A truly efficient beast. This of course allowed for games to be run off 1 floppy disk, a true marvel of its time.

Since the standard cloned X86 BIOS doesn’t have OS components (unlike the Amiga’s Kickstart ROM), part of first 1MB space (Upper memory and 640Kb region) would be allocated for Himem.sys, EMM386, CD-ROM drivers, MS serial mouse drivers, soundblaster variables (or soundblaser emulators on certain sound cards), Plug and Play DOS manager, setver command, Command.com and etc.

Ever since the IBM XT, hard disk comes in as standard, even on X86 based X-BOX. The existence of a hard disk may promote some sloppy programming during the early life of X86 PCs.  

This of course allowed for games to be run off 1 floppy disk, a true marvel of its time.

Note that X86 version of Lotus3 game comes in 1 disk (1.44MB).

[Hammer]

Still I see it a real shame that we couldn't continue with Amiga's legacy of efficient coding.

What about X86 QNX? (it has games such as Unreal Tournament  and QuakeIII) OR AROS?

But is it really good practise to be resource wasteful with sloppy code?!?!

Ultimately it promotes hardware sales…

There are some parts of Windows that are optimized for maximum speed e.g. 3D drivers..  

There are some X86 applications (most related to encoding and decoding video/audio streams) that are optimized for maximum speed (e.g. MMX, 3DNow, 3DNow Pro, SSE, SSE2).

The bloated part is for the support for application services (too many to list down).

I personally think it should be a crime punishable by death if that same approach is adopted for the Amiga OS4 platform. hehe.

What happens if Quake III/Unreal Tournament/MS Office XP/Star Office 6.0/Netscape 7 gets ported over to AmigaOS 4.0?

BTW can't AOS4 boost say an A1@G4 800Mhz to feel like a A1@1600Mhz. I mean an Athlon 1800+ is really just running at 1533Mhz yet is comparable to a P4 1800Mhz.

Athlon XP’s rating is based on Athlon Model 4 (a.k.a Thunderbird core). It’s rating was obtained mostly from MS Windows applications and benchmarks(refer to AMD’s web site for disclosure).  

IF the PowerPC has MS Windows 2K/XP a rating could be created. The closest desktop application set to MS Windows is the MacOS X platform.

It’s just too bad that PPC MacOS platform is not an alternative clone market.

[Hammer]

 

I remember doing a small HW hack with cutting and soldering a few lines on the motherboard which then converted the 512k expansion into an extra 512k of Chip (giving you a total of 1meg Chip) which was great if you had a HD attached to the side of the machine.

I still remember that hack (modifying A500 6A motherboard to the level of A500 Plus (also plugged in new ECS chips and ROMs) .

The best hack I did was the 50Mhz clock source hack on the A3000’s 68882 FPU (getting something for nothing (well almost i.e. one has to install a small heat sink) ).

[Hammer]

I trust they will not follow in the same path as m$.

In a desktop business environment, legacy software support is important. MS couldn’t afford to alienate its (cashed up) business customers.   One of the main strength of MS Window’s marketing ideology is its legacy software support.

IF required, MS can deliver a cut down MS Windows 2K with little legacy software support (i.e. refer to X-BOX's OS package).  

since we don't use MMX/SSE/3Dnow code, nor do

PPC G4 (and soon to be released(H2 2003) PPC 970) does have it’s own streaming instructions btw…

==========================================
Some minimal configurations:
LynxOS: 150kb
BlueCat Linux: 260kb
Windows XP Embedded: 5Mb

Some typical configurations:
LynxOS: 250kb
Linux: 500kb
Windows XP Embedded: 15Mb
==========================================
Reference

[Hammer]

@Atheist

AmigaOne! 2 Gigs of ram, you can actully USE it!!!!

In a RAM disk context, ~2.0 GB may not be enough for UT2003 or Unreal2 level games.

1. "Unreal 2" has installed size of 2.10 Gb (2,257,989,274bytes). It was shiped with 2 CDs.

2. "Unreal Tournament 2003" has installed size of 2.88Gb (3,101,392,896bytes). It was shiped with 3 CDs.

This tread will continue at foreseeable future.

"Unreal 2" has practically killed the “Geforce 2” as a gaming 3D card.  

[Hammer]

jeffimix wrote:
The Xbox has a many bit processor, I though it was 128 like other consoles out there...  you'd have to do a lot of really heavy work to port windows. Or are the processors stil 64 bti like the N64? Which doesn't seem right to me...

XBOX's has the following;
+ Pentium III/Celeron variant has 128Kb L2 cache.  It has 32bit(or 36bit extended) memory address capability with 64 bit data I/O.  (Recalling) Pentium III/Celeron’s L1 to L2 cache interface is 256bit wide (for internal I/O operations).
+ The 250 MHz Custom-Designed NV2X is a variant of a low end Geforce 3 (NV20, DirectX 8 class GPU). The GPU itself is a 256bit part i.e. post-Geforce 256(NV10). This includes texture compression.
+ XBOX’s chipset is a variant of nVidia’s nForce IGP chipset. e.g. http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=apu

One could kitbash a similar performing box with AMD Duron @800Mhz, nForce 1, Geforce 3-200, 64MB DDR SDRAM.